Back in the early 70's I purchased this shotgun at a garage sale,I think I paid $7.50 for it and I was going to use it strictly as a Fire Place Hanger...............I never have tried to ID this gun.

It is a 10 ga.,with dual hammers ,dual triggers and in the top of the barrels,on the sight rib, it says laminated steel. The barrels are 31 3/4 " long Below the hammers on each side,on the receiver plate is the name of W.Richards (maybe Westley Richards?).

The breech opens via a swing arm,right to left,and forward of that is another smaller swing arm that unlocks the barrels.

Your "W.Richards" was not made by the Westlet Richards Company. It was made in Belgium. The gun probably has no real maker. These guns were made up from components produced is many small shops and put together in another. It was a cottage industry that furnished cheap guns for US farmers. These guns usually sold for a few dollars and were often unsound when new.

Now the bad news: The chamber on your gun is probably 2 7/8". Any modern ammo may well destroy the gun, and the shooter. Laminated steel barrels were the cheapest to be had on these guns and were never ment for modern ammo, especially after 100 years. In the used gun market, these guns are often refered to as JABCs (Just Another Belgium Clunker).

The good news is that you bought it at a very low price. Guns like yours can go for as much as $40 to $60. Go into a Cracker Barrel Resturant and you can find them hanging over their fireplace (good place for it) for as much as $100. Look at it this way, if you bought a real Westley Richards for $750 and found that it was really worth $40,000, you would be happy. Be happy!

_________________CAUTION: Things may appear closer in the rear view mirror!

There is another faint possibility with your 10 guage. The company W. Richards (no connection with Wesley Richards) operated near Liverpool in England, they were still in business as late as the 1950's but are now probably defunct.Their location near a major seaport meant that a fair quantity of their output went to the 'Colonies' and just maybe that is where your gun came from. The underlever barrel locking on your gun is a Jones Screw Grip (patented by Henry Jones in 1894 or something I cant remember exactly when) and the type of forend locking thing was a patent from a similiar time. If your gun is from Liverpool it would show Birmingham Proof Marks and if from Belgium they would be from Leige - or possibly none.

If its a Lefaucheux locking system then nearly sure to be Belgian. The Jones screw grip lever kind of curls around under the trigger guard and thats what I thought the original poster meant .
A bit away from the original point but are these spuriously named guns that you have in the States proof marked in any way ?. Over the years I have seen a few obviously Belgian guns with various makers names on the rib or lockplates but they were always Leige proofed. Even a junk Purdey ??? boxlock that turned up had the Belgian marks.
It was an accepted thing at the lower end of the 'English' gun trade that some of the guns were imported and then stamped up with the supposed maker or retailer's name. I have a few 1880's onward catalogues that make that quite obvious.

I pulled the barrel assembly and underneath I found the following numbers and hallmarks;
under the left barrel and forward of the lug was an M and an item that looked like an old pointed oil can.Below that was an E then below that an L and a G on the same level then below a Star.
On the lug was an F
On the right barrel was a 38 and then below that was either the numbers 164 or 184. More than likely just an old Belgian wall hangar but the hallmarks were very interesting.
Thanks again,
Bruce

The marks E L & G with the star underneath are the Belgian Definitive Proof Marks and I think the 'oil can' will be the 'View Mark'. Probably somewhere else on the flats it will be marked P.V. under a little lion thing - thats the Nitro Proof Mark - if it is in fact Nitro.
The original answer from A5guy in response to your question was right on the button